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®ljr jForest $?ome Series. No. I. 


A Sequel to the Mountaineer Series. 


PRINCE’S PINE. 


BY 

/ 

WILLIS BOYD ALLEN, 


AUTHOR OF “THE MOUNTAINEER SERIES,” “CHRISTMAS AT 
SURF POINT,” “ PINE CONES,” “ SILVER RAGS,” “ THE 
NORTHERN CROSS,” “ KELP," ETC. 



BOSTON AND CHICAGO: 

dTongrEgattonal iSun&ags.Sdjool anti ^ublisfjincf Soring, 








COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY 

CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND PUBLISHING SOCIETY. 


Electrotyped and Printed hy 
Samuel Usher, jji Devonshire Street, Boston . 


TO 


3VIY LITTLE WASHINGTON NIECE, 

ETHEL. 



CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Winnie's Armful.7 

II. What Became of the Evergreens . 16 

* 

III. Snow-bound.25 

IV. Daily Bread. 35 

V. A New Mountaineer. 49 









PRINCE’S PINE. 


CHAPTER I. 

Winnie’s armful. 

“ Please open the door, 
mother! ” 

Winnie Alden stood outside the 
log-cabin which was his home, and 
stamped the snow from his boots. 
He could n’t open the door himself 
because he had an armful of green, 
trailing vines of some sort. They 
were dotted with white, for snow 
was falling fast, and the boy’s cap 
had quite a little drift on the top 
of it. 

Presently footsteps were heard 



8 PRINCE'S PINE. 

inside the cabin and the door 
opened, showing Winnie’s sister 
Stella, who threw up her hands 
in dismay and fun at the sight. 
“ What a boy ! Stand right where 
you are, Winnie Alden, until I 
brush you off.” The girl caught 
up a hemlock broom that stood 
against the wall and gave her 
brother a good sweeping from head 
to foot, not sparing his nose and 
eye-winkers. 

Winnie shrieked with glee and 
pelted her back with evergreens, 
while Stella defended herself with 
the broom from the soft shower. 

“ Children ! children ! ” came a 
gentle voice from an inner room, 
“shut the door, and don’t stay out 
there in the cold.” 


WINNIE'S ARMFUL. 


9 

Winnie gathered up his treas¬ 
ures, stamping off the last bit of 
snow from his boots, hung up his 
coat and hat, and followed his 
sister, panting and laughing, into 
the kitchen, where a generous fire 
was blazing in the fire-place. 

“ Where ’s King ? ” he asked, 
after giving his mother a kiss, and 
stretching out his feet to the fire. 
He sat on a large piece of a log, 
which served nicely for a stool. 

“King?" replied Mrs. Alden 
cheerily, as she bustled about 
the room in her preparations for 
supper. “ Oh, he ’s out chopping 
wood, I believe, in the edge of the 
clearing.” 

“Yes,” said Winnie, after listen¬ 
ing a minute, “ I can hear him; 


IO PRINCE'S PINE. 

he \s getting a good lot in for 
to-night, I guess.” 

“ And to-morrow too,” added 
Stella. “It’s beginning to snow 
real hard, and small flakes. You 
know grandmother used to say : — 

‘ Fine as meal, 

Come a good deal.’ ” 

“ What did you bring in with you, 
Winthrop? ” asked Mrs. Alden. 

“ It ’s evergreen, mother.” 

Winnie sprang up from his seat 
and brought it for his mother to 
see. 

“Isn’t it pretty? I thought 
you and Stella would like it, to 
hang up on the walls.” 

“ Evergreen ? ” said his mother, 
her face lighting up. “ Yes, it ’s 


WINNIE'S ARMFUL. 


I I 

very pretty. It’s the kind we used 
to call ‘ prince’s pine.’ ” 

Winnie thought the pleased 
look came into her face because 
she was glad to have the ever¬ 
green. It was partly that, but 
mostly, I think, because her boy 
loved her and had thought enough 
of her and his sister to gather it. 

“ We can put some over the 
looking-glass in the front room,” 
she added, holding up a long spray 
to try the effect. 

“ Prince’s pine ! What a funny 
name! What do they call it that 
for, mother ? ” 

“ I’m sure I don't know, dear,” 
said Mrs. Alden pleasantly. “ But 
we ’ll make a reason for it. See, 
I m going to pin a bit of it on 


12 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


your jacket, as a sign that you are 
my prince.” 

Winnie looked down at his dec¬ 
oration with great satisfaction. 

“ Now we must have a piece for 
Stella,” he said. “ We can call 
that ‘ princess’ pine,’ can’t we ? 
It sounds just the same.” 

So Stella pinned a little spray of 
evergreen on her dress, and when 
Mr. Alden came home from the 
store, and King came in from his 
wood-pile, bringing a great armful 
of snowy sticks, the prince and 
princess were having a game of 
checkers in the chimney-corner, 
each with their spray of ever¬ 
green. 

“Hulloa!” said John Alden, 
“ what’s this ? A button-hole bou¬ 
quet ? ” 


WINNIE'S ARMFUL. 


13 

“ Mother says it ’s our in-sig- 
ni-a,” said Winnie, pronouncing 
the word very carefully. 

“ What in the world does that 
mean ? ” 

“ I don’t exactly know, sir,” ad¬ 
mitted Winthrop. “ But I guess 
something princes and princesses 
wear. Mother said she’d tell us 
about it after supper.” 

Mr. Alden laughed and took his 
seat. 

“ Mother generally has to ‘ tell 
us about it ’ when there ’s any 
thing to know,” said he, with an 
affectionate look across the table. 

While the family are at tea I 
must hurry and tell you who they 
are. 

The Aldens once lived in the 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


14 

village of Selborne. Those of you 
who have read the “ Mountaineer” 
books will remember how Mr. Al- 
den lost his place at the mill, 
and how they all were obliged to 
move to Fir Mountain, where they 
found a deserted logging-camp in 
the woods, half a mile up the moun¬ 
tain from the railroad. At the 
station Mr. Alden kept a small 
store, where the railroad men and 
the lumbermen and their families 
who lived at a settlement not far 
away obtained their supplies. 

There was a large hotel near by, 
which was, however, only open 
for three or Tour months in the 
summer-time. 

The old logging-hut the Aldens 
(or the “ Mountaineers,” as they 


WINNIE'S ARMFUL. 


15 

were called by the people round 
about) fitted up comfortably for 
a house. On Christmas-eve Mr. 
Alden had saved a train of freight- 
cars from a terrible accident at 
Broad Gap Trestle, and as a re¬ 
ward the railroad company had 
promised him a good position at 
one of their depots in a large town 
some miles further south. 

Meanwhile the Mountaineers 
resolved to stay where they were 
until the following autumn, when 
they would move to their new 
home. 

At the time this story begins, 
Stella is fourteen years old, King 
thirteen, and Winthrop nine. It 
is early in February, when the 
snow in the mountains is the 
deepest. 


CHAPTER II. 


WHAT BECAME OF THE EVERGREENS. 

“To begin with,” said Mr. 
Alden, as the Mountaineers all 
gathered round the blazing fire 
after supper, “ King had better 
throw on one of his big birch 
logs he was cutting this afternoon. 
That will hold the fire almost till 
morning.” 

The log was brought in, and 
the flames were soon crackling 
merrily around its silvery bark. 

“ Now, mother,” said Winnie, 
taking his favorite seat at her side, 
and laying his cheek against her 
lap, “ please tell us about prince’s 
pine.” 


THE EVERGREENS. 


17 

“ Oh, there is n’t much to tell, 
after all,” said Mrs. Alden, stroking 
the boy’s hair. “Some people call 
wintergreen prince’s pine; but we 
girls used always to mean this 
sort of evergreen. Another name 
is ‘ ground pine.’ ” 

“ What is its long name, moth¬ 
er?” asked Stella. 

“ A very long one indeed,” 
laughed Mrs. Alden. “ It is Lyco¬ 
podium. Winthrop, can you re¬ 
member that ? ” 

“ Lotty pendulum,” said Win¬ 
throp gravely; at which there was 
a shout of laughter from the rest. 

“ Win never stops for want of a 
little word like that,” cried King. 
“ He ought to be sent to the South 
Sea Islands to converse with the 
natives.” 


18 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


“ Thousands of years ago,” con¬ 
tinued Mrs. Alden, “ in the time 
we read about in Genesis” — 

“ Hold on a minute, Polly,” in¬ 
terrupted her husband. “ Let’s 
see just what it says.” 

“ The first chapter and twelfth 
verse,” she added. 

Stella read the verse aloud : — 

“ ‘ And the earth brought forth 
grass, and herb yielding seed after 
his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, 
whose seed was in itself, after his 
kind : and God saw that it was 
good.’ ” 

“Was this kind of evergreen 
made then ? ” asked Winnie breath¬ 
lessly. 

“ Yes, dear, only it grew to an 
enormous size, as big as the trees 




THE EVERGREENS. \g 

about our cabin. Soon there were 
strange beasts resting in its shad¬ 
ow and swimming about in the 
swamps where it grew. At last 
the earth sank a little, the ocean 
came in over all the trees and herbs 
and evergreens in that part of the 
w T orld, and for thousands of years 
more the waves rolled to and fro 
above them. Then the ocean went 
away again, but the beautiful green, 
growing things-were buried deep 
under the mud and sand/’ 

“ Oh, what a shame ! ” 

“ They were all squeezed to¬ 
gether and were now quite black.” 
“ Oh!” 

“ Then thousands of years more 
went by. The huge beasts had all 
disappeared ; forests grew over the 


20 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


lovely evergreens, now black and 
far down in the earth, out of sight. 
But God remembered how he had 
made them, away back in the old 
Genesis time. He had some use 
for those poor, crushed * herbs ’ 
yet.” 

The children were now very 
much interested; and even their 
father leaned forward eagerly to 
hear more about the old, old ever¬ 
greens. 

“ Men began to dig in the earth 
to see what they could find,” Mrs. 
Alden went on. “ Deeper and 
deeper they made the holes, call¬ 
ing them ‘ mines,’ until one day 
they came upon a thick layer of 
some strange black substance. To 
their surprise they found that 


THE EVERGREENS. 


21 


though it looked like rocks it 
would burn. In short it was ” — 

“ Coal! ” exclaimed Stella and 
King together. 

“ Exactly. The hardest part 
they called hard or anthracite coal. 
In England they call it sea coal, 
because the mines are near the 
ocean. The softer part is soft 
or bituminous coal. That is what 
they burn in the steam fire-engines 
in the city ; it blazes up so 
quickly." 

“ And did all the plants and 
trees turn to coal, mother ? " 

“ No, dear. The hardest part of 
all became ‘ black lead,’ the kind 
that is used in lead pencils." 

“ How funny ! Think of using 
evergreen pencils ! " 


22 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


“ You see, dear, God was pre¬ 
paring to answer our prayers in 
the days when he created ‘ the 
herb yielding seed ’ so many thou¬ 
sands of years ago. He knew some¬ 
body would be cold in the great 
cities where they can not get wood, 
so he prepared the forests and the 
ocean, and began to make coal.” 

“ But our kind of evergreens 
don’t turn into coal, do they, 
mother ? ” said Winnie, gazing up 
at the festoons on the wall as if he 
half-expected to see them shrivel 
up into black heaps. 

“ Not nowadays. It has become 
smaller and smaller, until it is 
only the pretty prince’s pine. But 
when you wear that in your button¬ 
hole, my boy, you can remember 


THE EVERGREENS. 


23 

the old days when the tall princes 
pine waved in the air, and ‘ God 
saw that it was good.’ ” 

Winnie was getting pretty sleepy, 
but he asked one more question. 

“ What did you call me a prince 
for, mother ? ’’ 

“Ah, I must tell you that an¬ 
other night. Now a chapter in the 
dear old Bible, John, and then 
we ’ll all go to bed.” 

The storm roared so loudly that 
Mr. Alden read the One Hundred 
and Forty-seventh Psalm, on ac¬ 
count of the sixteenth verse. 

When Winnie lay snugly cud¬ 
dled up in his bed, how the wind 
howled about the little hut! And 
he could hear the snow drifting 
against the bark roof overhead. 

o 


24 


PRINCE'S PINE . 


Then he thought of that verse in 
the Psalm, and was glad to think 
that God gave n His snow “like 
wool,” and that He was tucking up 
all His pretty evergreens in their 
white blanket until spring should 
come. 



CHAPTER III. 


SNOW-BOUND. 

The first thing that Winnie 
thought of when he woke the 
next morning was the storm. It 
was snowing still, he was sure, for 
though it was dark in the loft, and 
there was no window to see out of, 
had it been ever so light, the 
wind could be plainly heard out¬ 
side, roaring through the tree-tops 
and around the corners of the 
cabin. 

“ Ah,” thought Winnie, as he 
snuggled down under the bed¬ 
clothes, “ it ’s snowing harder than 
ever. What jolly fun we '11 have 
in the house to-day ! ” 


26 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


Stormy days, instead of being 
long and dreary at the home of 
the Mountaineers, were generally 
considered by the'children as the 
pleasantest of all. 

Mrs. Alden knew a great many 
stories which she would tell them 
as they sat by the fire after her 
morning’s work was done. Some¬ 
times she would read from story- 
papers ; or she would let them cut 
out pictures and paste them into 
scrap-books, while she wrote short 
stories for them herself. 

Presently Winnie heard a queer, 
rasping, grating sound from the 
kitchen below. He knew that it 
was Stella grinding the coffee for 
breakfast, and that it was time for 
him to get up. 


SNOW-BOUND . 


2 7 

It was not pleasant to jump out 
of that warm bed ; the loft was 
very cold, being warmed only by 
the air which came up by the stair¬ 
way. But Winthrop was too 
much of a man, even at ten years, 
to be conquered by cold air or 
warm blankets. So up he sprang, 
dressed himself as fast as possible, 
and hurried down. 

The rest of the family were all 
busy. Mrs. Alden was frying some 
appetizing slices of bacon over the 
fire. King was out in the other 
cabin, or shed, feeding Whiteface, 
the cow. Stella was busy with the 
coffee, and Mr. Alden was mending 
one of his snow-shoes. 

“ Hulloa, Win,” cried King, com¬ 
ing in with a brimming pail; “ help 
me strain this milk, will you ? ” 


28 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


Winthrop was ready as soon as 
he had given his hands and face a 
dash of cold water. 

A glance at the window showed 
him that the storm was raging 
harder than ever. 

“ It’s going to be a rough day 
for the railroad men,” observed Mr. 
Alden, as they sat down to break¬ 
fast. “ They 'll have to shovel 
hard in the Notch, to get the trains 
through.” 

“ Shall you go down to the 
store, John ? ” asked his wife rather 
anxiously. 

“ Oh, yes, I must be there a part 
of the day. I shall come home 
before dark, you may be sure.” 

“ We shall have some stories by- 
and-by, sha’n’t we, mother?” asked 
Winnie, with dancing eyes. 


SNOW-BOUND. 


2 9 

“ I suppose so,” said his mother, 
smiling. “ That is, if you ’ll help 
me knit a stocking.” 

“ Oh, I’m afraid I can't do that, 
mother. I don’t know how.” 

“ Don’t know how to do any part 
of it?” 

“ Why, no, ma’am. I can’t knit, 
you know.” 

“ Well, after breakfast is over, 
and your father has gone, and 
King has brought in a supply of 
wood for the forenoon, and Stella 
has cleared off the table, and we’ve 
washed and put away the dishes, 
we ’ll see what you can do, my son, 
towards helping me knit the stock¬ 
ings.” 

“ I don't see how I can do any 
thing.” 


30 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


“If you are a real prince, you 
can. That s the way I can tell 
whether you deserve to wear the 
prince’s pine.’’ 

Winthrop privately thought that 
it was pretty hard to judge a prince 
by the way he knit stockings, but 
he said nothing more about it at 
the time. 

When all the rest of the morn¬ 
ing’s work had been completed, the 
family — all but Mr. Alden, who 
had started on his snow-shoes for 
the railroad station — took their 
places by the fireside. 

“ Now, mother,” said Winnie 
eagerly, “ I ’m ready.” 

“Ah,” said Mrs. Alden, “ I really 
begin to believe you are a prince, 
after all. That sounds exactly like 
one.” 




SNOW-BOUND. 


31 

With these words she took from 
the table-drawer a good-sized skein 
of blue yarn. 

“ I don’t see any needles,” ob¬ 
served Winthrop. “ How can I 
knit without needles?” 

“ I did n’t ask you to knit. I 
just said to ‘ help me knit a stock¬ 
ing.’ A good many people, when 
any thing fine is to be done, are 
ready to say, ‘ I can’t do that, I’m 
sure. It would take some one 
wiser and better than I.’ That’s 
because they think they must do 
all the difficult parts themselves.” 

“ But what can I do, mother ? ” 

“You can — hold the skein, 
while I wind the yarn in a. ball,” * 
said Mrs. Alden gravely. 

Winthrop clapped his hands and 
then held them out for the yarn. 



32 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


“ I can do that, any way,” he 
laughed. 

“ And that's all you ’re asked to 
do. If the yarn were not held and 
wound by somebody, I could n’t 
knit my stockings.’’ 

“ Why could n’t I wind, moth¬ 
er,” put in Stella, “ while you 
knit with the other ball that I see 
in your apron pocket ? There’s 
enough on that to last till the new 
skein is ready.” 

“That’s better still,” said Mrs. 
Alden in a tone of real satisfac¬ 
tion. “ That shows, my dear,” she 
added with a loving look, “ that 
you are a princess.” 

The older brother now brought 
out a piece of tough white-oak 
wood, which he was fashioning 
into a handle for one of the axes. 


Sailing on Dry Land. Page 33. 
























SNOW-BOUND. 


33 

As all were now busy, Mrs. 
Alden declared she was ready to 
tell a story, as soon as she had 
shown them a queer picture of a 
ship on dry land. 

“ What can it mean ? ” the chil¬ 
dren asked, bending over the 1 
picture together. 

“ It’s the ‘ Eads’ Railway,’ ” said 
Mrs. Alden. “That’s the way 
people expect to cross the Isthmus 
of Panama before long. I thought 
you’d like to see it. And now for 
the story.” 

“ About evergreens ? ” asked 
Winnie. 

“ Well, I Ve said so much to 
you about how God prepares 
long beforehand to keep us warm 
by making coal, that I thought 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


34 

you’d like to hear the story the 
sparrow told.” 

“ The sparrow! Oh, what 
about ? ” 

“ The way the prayer for ‘ daily 
bread ’ is answered beforehand.” 

The children all kept at work, 
and Mrs. Alden’s shining needles 
flew back and forth while she 
talked. 



The Sparrow’s Story. Page 34 







1 


CHAPTER IV. 


DAILY BREAD. 

“ I think,” said Mrs. Alden, 
“that before we begin, King had 
better throw a little more wood on 
the fire.” 

This was accordingly done. The 
wind boomed like great cannons 
outside, and once in awhile a puff 
down the chimney sent the ashes 
out over the hearth. Two of the 
windows were nearly covered with 
a huge drift that deepened every 
hour. But now for the story. 

“ As I said,” began Mrs. Alden, 
“ it was a sparrow; not a country 
bird by any means, but one of 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


36 

those round, bright-eyed, saucy 
little fellows that flutter about the 
sidewalks and pavements in a 
noisy city, or sit on the front steps 
of their bits of houses on a cold 
day, with their feet tucked in and 
their feathers well pulled up about 
their ears to keep them warm. It 
was one of these city sparrows, 
whose great-great-grandfather had 
come from England, and who 
therefore was apt to turn up his 
small bill at the sober pigeons 
(although, between you and me, 
he was very glad to share their 
crumbs) who told me this story." 

Here Winthrop laughed out¬ 
right, but Mrs. Alden continued 
gravely : — 

Within a thousand miles of 


DAILY BREAD. 


37 

Boston,’ said he, alighting as he 
spoke on the nose of a great stone 
lion close by, ‘ there lies a deep 
forest, larger than the Black 
Forest of Germany; so large, so 
dark, that if a man were lost in 
the center, without compass or 
guide, he might wander for months 
without finding his way to the 
open sunlight again. On its moun¬ 
tains the firs and hemlocks have 
glistened in the red sunsets and. 
moaned and bowed their heads in 
the storms for thousands of years. 
Strange, solitary birds flit to and 
fro among their boughs, and here 
and there the smooth bark of the 
beech is gashed by claw-marks 
of the black bear. Few and brave 
are the flowers that dare to show 


38 PRINCE'S PINE. 

their faces in these solitudes ; but 
all winter long the pines mur¬ 
mur and whisper and sing their 
lullabies over the hidden, trailing 
vines at their feet, and all winter 
long the soft tassels droop low to 
shield them from the biting north 
wind. And when the spring 
comes, and the birches on the hill¬ 
sides are laughing and clapping 
their hands, then the air is sweet 
and rich with all sorts of delicious, 
wholesome smells ; and sweetest of 
all is the fragrance of the May¬ 
flowers.’ 

“ Here the sparrow paused a 
moment to pick up a bit of cake 
that a little girl had dropped from 
her luncheon as she hurried by 
to school, and with a wise turn of 


DAILY BREAD. 


39 

his brown head and a twinkle in 
his bright black eyes, began again. 

“ 4 On the borders of this forest 
and reaching a little into its 
midst, like bays on a sea-coast or 
mouse bites in a cheese, are clear¬ 
ings, where strong men have cut 
down the trees, built houses from 
the rough logs, and planted pota¬ 
toes and grain among the stumps 
that were left standing here and 
there. 

“ ‘ And now,’ said the sparrow 
severely, ‘ you must pay better 
attention, for the story part of it 
all begins just here. 

“ ‘ One fair May morning a 
grain of wheat fell from the hand 
of a farmer, at the foot of what 
had been a mighty pine in one 


40 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


of those clearings. It nestled 
down in the soft mold, for the air 
was still chilly and the little wheat- 
kernel felt lonely and cold. The 
old stump sheltered it, however, 
and soothed it with stories of 
forest life, of the squirrels, at 
which the grain trembled, and 
the bushy-tailed foxes, at which 
the grain laughed; and, most won¬ 
derful of all, of trees which had 
crossed great oceans and met their 
old friend, the West Wind, far out 
upon the sea, where the waves 
were black and huge, and where 
whales and dolphins rolled and 
flashed in the starlight. So the 
days went by, until the wheat- 
grain felt comforted and ventured 
to put out its little white toes, and 


DAILY BREAD . 


41 

at last to lift its head into the 
sunshine. 

“ ‘ How happy the world looked 
then ! Birds twittered and built 
their nests at the foot of the 
old stump, the sun shone upon it, 
butterflies began to appear with 
rich purple-and-gold wings, and 
the little plant nodded to them 
gleefully as they fluttered daintily 
by. Spring was over, and sum¬ 
mer came with its fierce heats, its 
awful storms of thunder and hail, 
its fever and thirst; but the wheat 
grew stronger and taller, until it 
felt quite ready to go forth into the 
world and do mighty deeds, per¬ 
haps even to cross the seas, as the 
tree had done, and wander up and 

7 JL 

down in foreign lands. 


42 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


“ ‘ One day it was thinking upon 
all these things, with its head 
drooped low, when a terrible 
sound was heard close by — a 
sharp, steely sound, a rustling, 
drooping sound; and before the 
poor wheat could fairly tell what 
was coming, the sickle had cut it 
off, and it was lying prostrate with 
heaps of its comrades in the 
scorching sun. 

“ ‘ Then followed dreadful days. 
It would be too long to tell you," 
said the sparrow with a shiver,. 
‘ how it was jolted over the stony 
ground in a great, clumsy sort 
of cart; how it was beaten and 
bruised from head to foot with 
clubs, until its kernels rolled away 
from its long, graceful stalk, and 


DAILY BREAD . 


43 

were shut up in the dark for 
weeks ; how at last they were 
carried off to the banks of a rush¬ 
ing, roaring stream, where a creat¬ 
ure with great stone jaws seized 
them and ground them to a fine, 
white powder; how this powder 
was put into a barrel with much 
more just like itself and whirled 
away over a track of iron rails, 
mile after mile, until it reached 
a city and was stored in the back 
part of a queer, warm building, 
much larger than any log-house in 
the clearings; how the next day 
that very handful of wheat-powder, 
for it happened to be just on the 
top of the barrel, was thrown 
into water and tumbled about 
until it was quite sure of being 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


44 

drowned, and then placed in a hot, 
black sort of hole, where it was 
quite positive it would be burned 
to death. 

“ ‘ But when it came out of 
that hole, what do you suppose,’ 
cried the sparrow, giving two or 
three delighted hops, and fairly 
fluttering his mites of wings for 
fear I should guess too soon, 
— ‘ what do you suppose it was 
then? Can’t think? Well, ma’am, 
it was a great, white, beautiful 
loaf of bread ! 

“‘Now, if you will excuse me,’ 
said the important little bunch of 
feathers, quieting down again, and 
perching on the lion’s left ear for a 
change, ‘ I will speak of my own 
concerns a bit; but I must hurry, 



DAILY BREAD. 


45 


for somebody is getting ready a 
lot of crumbs at the window over 
there. Well, one day last spring 
Mrs. Sparrow (one of the oldest 
families in Kent) was house¬ 
hunting with me; and after a 
great many calls and disappoint¬ 
ments (for something was always 
the matter with the door, or the 
windows, or the ventilation, or 
— hem ! — the neighborhood), we 
decided upon a pleasant situation 
under a broad window cornice in a 
quiet but respectable street, where 
a widow and her three children 
lived in the upper story. A box 
had been comfortably arranged, 
and as the outlook was good, we 
took possession at once. 

“ ‘ Alas ! we soon found that the 




PRINCE'S PINE. 


46 

poor woman had barely enough 
money to keep herself and her 
littles ones from starving. Day 
after day she would wander from 
store to store and from house to 
house, hunting for work to do. 
There came a time when there 
was absolutely nothing to eat in 
the house, and nothing to buy 
food with. 

Now, on that very morning it 
had happened that while I was 
searching here and there and 
every-where for fashionable goods 
— you know the labor of furnish¬ 
ing a new house—I had the 
good fortune to alight upon a 
long, handsome straw, just as it 
fell from an up-town horse-car, 
where it had been keeping people’s 




DAILY BREAD. 47 

feet warm during the winter. Of 
course I seized it and carried it 
home in triumph, with the end 
streaming out far over my tail- 
feathers. Would you believe it! 
just as I reached the nest, and was 
looking in sorrowfully at the poor 
woman’s window, there came a 
loud knock at the door, and in 
walked a big, broad-shouldered 
man with a generous face—the 
city missionary, I think they call 
him — with a basket of good things 
to eat; and on the very top was 
that identical loaf of bread. 

“ ‘ There,’ twittered my little 
friend, ‘it isn’t much of a story, 
after all. Only, you see, the wheat- 
grain did some good in the world, 
even though it never sailed across 




PRINCE'S PINE. 


48 

the ocean ; for a part of it went to 
feed the poor, and the rest — well, 
God must have been thinking 
of what he said a great while ago 
about sparrows, when he saved 
up that straw all winter just to 
keep one of them from the 
cold. ’ ” 



CHAPTER V. 


A NEW MOUNTAINEER. 

The forenoon passed quickly 
in the Mountaineers’ cabin. Mrs. 
Alden told one or two other sto¬ 
ries, but we have n’t room for 
them here. 

After dinner the storm grew 
louder and fiercer than ever. The 
children were gathered by the win¬ 
dow, watching the snow whirl down 
among the trees, when they saw a 
man toiling up the path, and the 
wind blew so fiercely in his face 
that he could hardly get ahead. 

“ It’s father ! ” cried Winnie. 

“ What has he got in his 
arms? ” 


50 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


“ Why, it’s a big bundle of 
clothes ! ” 

Mrs. Alden was interested by 
this time, and rubbed the frost 
away on one of the little window- 
panes, to look out with the rest. 

Mr Alden, meanwhile, plunged 
on, his head bent down to meet 
the wind. 

At last he reached the door. 
His wife was ready, and held out 
her arms for the bundle. 

“ Be careful!” cried John, “ don’t 
drop her!” 

“Her!'' repeated Mrs. Alden. 
“You don’t mean” — 

She trotted back to the kitchen, 
bundle and all, while the boys 
helped their father out of his big 
snow-shoes, and brushed the snow 



A NEW MOUNTAINEER. 


51 

from his coat and hair. When 
they came in they found their 
mother sitting before the fire, 
holding on her lap a baby girl, 
perhaps a year old. 

The little one had been bundled 
up so warmly in an old shawl that 
she had not suffered at all from 
the cold, but looked up brightly 
into the wondering faces of the 
Mountaineers ; then stretched out 
two chubby hands to the fire, and 
fairly crowed with glee. 

The children were in raptures 
of delight over the new-comer. 
Stella ran to get some milk to heat 
for her, Winnie capered up and 
down to make her laugh, and 
King dangled a string of prince’s 
pine before her face until she 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


52 

fairly wriggled from head to foot 
to clutch it. 

% 

“ But where did she come from, 
John?” asked Mrs. Alden at 
length. 

“ I ’m sure I don’t know, Polly. 
I was just getting ready to close 
the shop when the Montreal ex¬ 
press came plowing along, five 
hours late. The conductor, Mr. 
Harkins, called out to me as the 
train slowed up at the station. 
‘ Here ’s a valentine for you, Al¬ 
den,’ says he, and hands me this 
bundle. Of course I took it with¬ 
out knowing what it was. ‘Left 
on the train; take good care of 
her,’ shouts Harkins; and off 
puffs the train.” 

“ And there you stand on the 


A NEW MOUNTAINEER. 


53 

the platform, in a raging snow¬ 
storm, with a baby in your hands ! 
Well, I never ! ” 

Which was a very strong ex¬ 
pression for Mrs. Alden. 

“ What did he mean by ‘ left on 
the train ’ ? ” asked Stella. 

“ Either her father and mother 
got tired of her ” — 

“ Oh ! oh ! ” 

“ Or she is a little orphan/’ 

The baby looked up into Mrs. 
Alden’s kind face and smiled. 
That was the last straw. 

“The blessed child!” she ex¬ 
claimed, holding the little waif to 
her heart. “ She sha’n’t be sent 
away from this house as long as I 
have two hands to work for her. 
John,” she added softly, “do you 



54 PRINCE'S PINE. 

remember how He set a little child 
in their midst ? That is what He 
has done for us ! ” 

Mr. Alden’s face was as gentle as 
her own, as he said three short 
words : — 

“ She shall stay.” 

“ What do you suppose her 
name is ? ” asked Winnie. 

But before any one could answer, 
the wee girl herself put in her 
word for the first time. 

“ Den, Den, Den,” she said 
plainly enough. Then she added, 
“ Mamma ! ” and looked anxiously 
around the room. Her little lip 
began to quiver. 

“It must be Jenny,” said Mrs. 
Alden, clasping the child again, 
with tears in her eyes, at the little 
stranger's last word. 



A NEW MOUNTAINEER. 


55 

“ Den, Den/’ said baby once 
more, looking piteously first at 
one, then another of the strange 
faces. 

At this moment Stella brought 
the cup of milk, and Jenny’s woes 
were for the time forgotten in the 
warm, sweet whiteness. 

Within a week the odd little val¬ 
entine was fully established in the 
cabin and went creeping about the 
floors from morning till night, 
until Mrs. Alden declared she 
reminded her of another kind of 
evergreen, “ creeping Jenny ” ; and 
the name clung to her. 

As soon as the great storm was 
over, the boys started out with 
their shovels to dig paths. The 
drift between the house and shed 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


56 

was so deep that they had to tun¬ 
nel it; and Winthrop was much 
more ready than ever before to feed 
Whiteface, it was such fun to 
scamper through the white, glis¬ 
tening tunnel, and come out into 
the little log hut fragrant with hay 
and birch chips, where the cow 
lived. 

A few nights later he reminded 
his mother that she had not told 
him why she had called him a 
prince. 

“ Because,’’ said she, laying her 
hand quietly on his shoulder, 
“ you are the child of a King; 
and that makes you a prince, you 
see. The only question is whether 
you will always behave like one, 
like a true prince.” 


A NEW MOUNTAINEER. 


57 

“ I ’ll try to be a good one, 
mother,” said the boy, with a 
bright look up into her face. 

Winnie said nothing more about 
it then, but he resolved he would 
do and think and speak as much 
like a prince as possible from that 
time. 

The prince’s pine was hung up 
prettily about the house. Nothing 
more was heard about the little 
girl, as conductor Harkins was 
that very week placed on another 
part of the road. The winter was 
by no means over yet; great snow¬ 
storms were to come. There were 
to be more stories told, new adven¬ 
tures on the mountain, more fun 
and frolic in the deep drifts around 
the Mountaineers’ log cabin. But 


PRINCE'S PINE. 


58 

if you want to know about these 
things, you must read the next 
volume of “ The Forest Home 
Series/' called 


“Creeping Jenny/’ 





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